Åsa Johannesson talks about her self-published book, The Boy and The Twins, shown as part of Self Publish Be Happy’s first public event at The Photographers’ Gallery last month.

Published in spring, it follows Jacob, an English boy who was born a girl, who the German photographer worked with for three years as he undergoes his gender change.

Images of Jacob are shown alongside family photos of Johannesson and her sister, “when we were growing up, as little boys almost”.

Self Publish Be Happy is a new initiative set up by Bruno Ceschel that celebrates the proliferation of DIY photobooks, and a new generation of image-makers who are taking control of their own work instead of trying to get it shown by traditional publishers.

Its first event, at The Photographers' Gallery in early June, will be followed by a workshop on self-publishing at Photofusion later in the year.

For the showcase at The Photographers’ Gallery he  included publications by Stephen Gill and Jason Evans, alongside much less familiar photographers, and mixed up with professionally printed and inkily-photocopied work.

"Some of the books have been put together with on-demand publishers online, others have been printed in the Far East," said Ceschel. "Still others have a newsprint feel, more akin to traditional underground zines. In each case I've chosen them because the format fits the photography - I wasn't interested in dummies put together to attract conventional book publishers. I wanted to celebrate them as they were, and in fact only a few would translate well into classical photobooks.

Self Publish, Be Happy also celebrates traditional printed books, rather than online publications or applications aimed at iPads. To Ceschel, the experience of reading a book online is very different to looking at a printed object, and that's a view shared by some other key influencers. Martin Parr and Gerry Badger are researching the subject, and Marc Purst, formerly of Agence Vu, is collecting DIY books for the Fotografia festival in Rome, which opens in September.

The video here was shot by Lorenzo Ricciarelli, who has shot two more interviews that can be seen on BJP-Online and on Youtube.